With an abundance of heatpipe-infused copper heatsinks up for sale
these days, it's easy to forget that there are other ways to make a slab of metal
a great conductor of heat into the surrounding atmosphere. High aspect ratio
swaged fins used to be one means, but were long ago replaced by stacked
fins and subsequently skived fins. Skiving is a relatively new metal working technique, and
it has all but disappeared from the latest crop of heatsinks for
some reason. The skiving process involves slicing chips of metal from a
solid block of aluminum or copper so that they remain firmly attached at
one end, generally left upright and straight. It's very similar to the act
of hand planning a block of wood, except the shavings are shorter and remain attached. Fin pitches of
1mm or less, and fin thickness of 0.3mm, are typical.

The benefit of a skived heatsink has always been
the lack of a thermal joint between the fins and base - eliminating an aspect of
thermal resistance from the overall equation. Solder or adhesive bonds
impart some resistance to heat energy moving from a heatsink base to its
fins because the bonding material is not as thermally conductive.

Designed properly, a skived aluminum heatsink
can leave an extruded aluminum heatsink in the dust. If any company has
perfected the skived heatsink it would have to be Dynatron. The latest
example of the companies' skived Socket 754/939 AMD Athlon64 heatsink line
recently arrived at FrostyTech for testing, it's called the Dynatron A41
(a.k.a. SKV24) heatsink.

The Dynatron A41 is a low profile 2U server capable (it's 45mm tall)
V-shaped skived aluminum heatsink with a copper base insert. The heatsink
employs a very effective design technique, where by the fins are not of
equal depth from side to side. The base of the heatsink has an inverted "V"
shape to it (a large flat triangle), and the fins jet out at right angles.

A recess at the center of the Dynatron A41 heatsink provides space for the
clip system, and is flanked by the edges of the skived fins which form a
flattened V-shape. This method of increasing the thickness of a heatsinks' base
at the center of the cooler, and having it gradually thin out towards
the edges is very effective. The only reason the technique isn't used
more often is because it isn't possible with extruded heatsinks.

FrostyTech's Test Methodology is outlined in detail
here if
you care to know
what equipment is used, and the parameters under which the tests are conducted. Now let's move forward and take a closer look at the
Dynatron A41 skived heatsink, its acoustic characteristics, and of course the thermal test results!